Practice area · 02

IP & Technology

Cleaning up the IP rights chain, agreements with creators and contractors, licences, open source, data and AI, trademarks and trade secrets.

The client’s problem

„Our value is the technology — but I’m not sure the rights to it are really inside the company.”

In a technology company the value isn’t in fixed assets but in the rights to the technology. And those tend to be scattered: part of the code was written by the founder before the company existed, part by a contractor without a proper agreement, part at a university.

An investor will check this in due diligence — and if the rights chain has holes, the round stalls. We tidy that chain before it becomes a problem: agreements with creators, assignments of rights, licences, open-source and data matters.

Increasingly AI comes into it: who holds the rights to code or content generated by models, how it affects the company’s IP and what to do about it in the documentation.

What we do

Scope in this area.

Audit and clean-up of the IP rights chain
Agreements with creators, employees and contractors (B2B)
Assignment of copyright and derivative rights
Licences, including open source and licence compliance
Data, databases and GDPR in the product
AI: rights to content and code, model risks
Trademarks and brand protection
Trade secrets and NDAs

How we work

Steps you know upfront.

01
IP audit
We map who created the key elements of the technology, when, and on what basis.
02
Gaps
We show where the rights chain is broken and what that means for the round.
03
Repair
We close the missing assignments and agreements — cleanly, without panic mid-DD.
04
Maintenance
We provide templates and a process so new code and content land in the company from the start.

Related matters

From this area

Deep-tech · Due diligenceIP
IP that is genuinely inside the company
Key technology was created partly before the company existed, outside it.
OutcomeRights chain cleaned up, red flag cleared before closing.

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